


You Machine!

by SherlockDreadsNaught



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Heavy Angst, John Watson's Blog, M/M, POV John Watson, Pining John, Post-Reichenbach, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 09:14:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2062440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SherlockDreadsNaught/pseuds/SherlockDreadsNaught
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John can't help but relive Sherlock's last day.  Something he said to Sherlock keeps re-playing in his mind, and he finds he cannot forgive himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Machine!

I called my best friend a machine.

I will never forgive myself for this.  Allow me to explain...

It was nearly dawn, although time seemed suspended in the windowless pathology lab.  Sherlock seemed as immovable as a statue, not even blinking when my mobile went off.  I know I cursed silently as I grabbed for it, because somehow I must have fallen asleep.  Strangly, I recall every word, every breath, every move.

“ Yeah, speaking…..Er, what? What happened?" What I was told made me jump to my feet. "Is she okay? Oh my God. Right, yes, I’m coming."  I simultaneously switched off the mobile, jammed it back in my pocket, grabbed my coat, and turned to Sherlock.  He must have read my expression like a printed page from a book.

"What is it?"

"Paramedics. Mrs. Hudson--she's been shot!" I had my jacket on and I recall already feeling breathless from the tension and anxiety. 

He sat where he was, making no move.  "What? How?"

" Well, probably one of the killers you managed to attract ... Jesus. Jesus. She’s dying, Sherlock. Let’s go."  I remember turning to leave, expecting Sherlock to be right beside me, coat on and scarf around his neck. Instead, he sat on that stool, as still as gargoyle.

"You go, I'm busy."  His tone was awful, it was ghastly as I now think back over the whole scene.

"Busy?" I remember how impotently furious I felt.

"Thinking. I need to think."  Had he ever been so devoid of emotion as he was at that moment.

 "You need to ...? Doesn’t she mean anything to you? You once half killed a man because he laid a finger on her."

"She's my landlady."

I remember the overwhelming urge to slap him.  "She's dying! You machine!"  I was furious, no, I was beyond furious.  "Sod this. Sod this.  You stay here if you want, on your own."

Most likely I will never forget his next words, even if I live to be 100. Was it the words, or was it the tone of his voice, because as I hear it in my head it was so bitterly sad and despondent, and I wonder why I didn't hear it then and stop dead in my tracks.

"Alone is what I have. Alone protects me."

I was so angry with him. "No. Friends protect people."

 

I fell silent and my therapist, Ella, sat equally as silent, letting me sift through the whole scene again, letting me sort out what I wanted to say next.  What did I want to say next?  What could I possibly say?  It was plain as day, in front of my face, and I had failed to see it.  Sherlock was in emotional anguish and I was being lured away from him. Oh sure, hindsight is 20/20, that adage sure as hell holds the truth in this instance.  When I think of him, when I think of That Day, when I think of all those hours I spent near him but without seeing what was going on, all I want to do is curse myself, and scream every rotten, filthy name under the sun that I can think of.  I was right there with him, and I walked away from him, but even worse than that....

"John," Ella said is her soft, comforting tone, "what are you thinking? I can see so much just from your expression."

I swallowed hard, fighting back tears and almost choking on that tight, burning sensation--you know the one I mean, when you just want to burst into tears but you fight them back.  My hands were gripping the arms of the chair and I found it very difficult to look her in the eye.  I had failed my best friend. I failed him; I left him alone when he needed me the most.

"I..." God, this was so hard, but I had told myself, in the days before the appointment that I myself had set up, that I needed to talk to her. "I called my best friend a machine.  I was maybe 8 bloody feet away from him, I looked right at him but I didn't SEE him, I didn't SEE what he was going through." The tears were threatening to stream from my eyes again.  "I looked right at him, and without seeing him, without seeing the pain he was in, without seeing the anguish and the....it had to be desperation.... I called him a machine. I called him a machine and a few hours later he jumped to his death.  What did I do? Did I cause him to jump? Did that stupid comment of mine push him to jump?"

 

I always thought therapy sessions were supposed to make you feel better, help you heal, and find answers.  By the time I dragged myself back to the flat, I was so exhausted I could barely make it up the steps.  And as for therapy working wonders, well, my limp is back, full force and painful.  Ella did have some advice for me to contemplate but right now, I am so bloody tired all I want to do is forget.  Forget everything.  Except that I can't; my mind won't let me.  

Did you ever wish for some way to turn back time, to go back to a certain day or event and do it over?  You have no idea how often I have wished for, prayed for, screamed for a way to go back to that last 24 hours with Sherlock.  After working with him for so long, you would think his powers of observation would have rubbed off on me and I would have bloody well noticed that he was off that day. Not just off but stressed, wound tighter than a watch spring.  Why didn't I notice the stress in his voice, in his face, the extra paleness of his skin, maybe a nervous tremor in his hands, or at least the sadness in his eyes.  God must be cursing me, because now that Sherlock is Gone, these signs are all I see when I think of him and that last day, especially the last few hours we spent in the lab.  If nothing else, I should have noticed his reaction, or lack thereof, when I called him a machine.  You machine...those words just came flying out of my mouth because I was so damned frustrated and furious, and I failed to see the grand scheme of things until I got back here to Baker Street and found Mrs. Hudson unharmed.

So, here I sit in the flat I shared with Sherlock Holmes, trying to pour into this blog some sort of confession, or...what is it....some people say writing is so cathartic.  I need that catharsis; hell, I need to be forgiven, but the only man who can do that, the only man who can aussage my guilt is lying beneath a black gravemarker.  I am surrounded by constant reminders of him, haven't had the will to clean out all of his "stuff" and get rid of it.  Mycroft has kept his distance, but then, let's just say that our last encounter was to drive home the point that he was helping to destroy his own brother. So...Ella has suggested that I move out of here. I agreed with her, that it would help, but I know in my heart that I can't do that until I feel it is the proper time.  You machine.  Oh Sherlock, as you always said, I see but I do not observe.  If I had observed you that day...That Day...maybe you would still be here, driving me crazy, being rude and imaptient, but at least you'd be alive.  How did I not see you?  I called you a machine, but no....you weren't such a machine, were you?

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I used http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/30648.html for the excerpts from the script.
> 
> This idea--John ruminating about having called Sherlock a machine--has been in the back of my head since at least April 2014. I had nothing more to go on than John saying "I called him a machine" so once I started writing, first of all it was interesting to discover it really was the time to write it, and secondly it was interesting to see how it wrote itself. I do believe that our minds keep workiong on things, ideas, even if we are not aware of it.


End file.
